The animal of a livestock are generally confined in indoor or outdoor stalls positioned according to a specific layout depending substantially on the available space and the required accessibility. One usual layout is to have the animals side-by-side in rows separated by passages for feeding and cleaning purposes. At feeding time, the farmer generally deposits individual rations of fodder and hay on the ground or in mangers in front of each animal. This repetitive duty is tedious and time consuming, especially if there are numerous animals to feed. Additionally, when the hay is stored in rolled hay bales, the farmers usually unroll the bales on the ground in front of the animals of the same row for speeding up the distribution. Like when individual feed rations are deposited directly on the ground, the hay becomes rapidly contaminated with other substances and is scattered by the animals all around the stalls, resulting in a waste of feeds. As for mangers, they occupy spaces and require regular cleaning.
Over the years, some feeding systems were invented for the automation of feed distribution. Among those feeding systems, some comprise an overhead rail with a suspended device passing in front of each animal and which prepares and delivers individual feed rations. However, these systems are costly, bulky, often too sophisticated for the needs of average farmers and are not well adapted for distributing hay. Examples of such systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,981,107 and 5,069,165.
Moreover, conventional manual distribution and prior art devices are not well adapted for an optimized distribution consisting of giving small amounts of feeds to each animal during a given period of time. These repetitive small meals stimulate the animals to eat more and to better digest the feeds, therefore helping the livestock to be in good health.